As stunning as that sounds, there's nothing new here necessarily to readers of The BRAD BLOG, other than the fact that outlets like the IDG News Service and PCWorld are reporting it --- out loud --- and that the computer scientist community, specifically those who have been studying these systems, are now out and out saying it --- in public...and out loud.

"The three systems we looked at are three of the most widely used around the nation," warned professor David Wagner of the University of California, "They're going to be using them in the 2008 elections; they're still going to have the same vulnerabilities we found."

Wagner was speaking about e-voting system made by Diebold, Sequoia Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic which he examined during CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen's independent "Top to Bottom" review last year. He "and his team found that they could introduce a computer virus to any of the three systems, which would then spread throughout the county and ultimately skew the vote count," the IDG News Service reports.

While our readers may be familiar with the above, our friend "DHinMI" and his fellow misinformed DailyKos front pagers may want to give this short article a quick look sometime soon. Particularly the part about paper ballots, and that simply having them is not enough...if nobody bothers to actually count them.

Here's the key grafs from the article...Along with a special clip for the dangerously misinformed/misleading dKos boys and girls...

U.S. Presidential Election Can Be HackedRobert McMillan, IDG News Service

This year, the U.S. will pick a new president using electronic voting machines that can be hacked, security experts said Thursday
...
As the November election approaches, the question before officials is not how to fix known bugs in their e-voting systems, but rather, how best to check them for fraud, said David Wagner, an associate professor with the University of California, Berkeley's computer science department.

Wagner was part of the team that audited California's voting systems during the state's review of electronic voting, and the problems his team found affect counties across the U.S. "The three systems we looked at are three of the most widely used around the nation," he said during an e-voting panel discussion at the show. "They're going to be using them in the 2008 elections; they're still going to have the same vulnerabilities we found."
...
The California audit examined systems from Diebold Elections Systems, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems, ultimately permitting their use in 2008, but only under certain conditions. In testing, Wagner and his team found that they could introduce a computer virus to any of the three systems, which would then spread throughout the county and ultimately skew the vote count.

And in case yutzes like disinfo specialist and DailyKos front pager, Dana "DHinMI" Houle, don't bother to read the full piece linked above, here's a special clipping just for him/them...

Wagner said...even the states that keep paper records are not necessarily checking their results. Only about a third of all states have records that are regularly audited.

(Never mind that none of those states actually does much of a legitimate public "audit", of those paper ballots and/or records, but you get the drift.)

Even people who fully understand that we're voting in totally nontransparent, insecure elections, don't really care. Or at least they don't care enough to boycott nontransparent elections and demand transparent verifiable elections.

Sure, elections activists will hold parallel elections, act as pollwatchers, file Public Records Requests, try to obtain audits and recounts, file lawsuits, etc., but they know that once the election results have been announced it is usually a waste of time.

To me, voting in an insecure election is like trusting a thief to guard your valuables. And voting in elections where even if your candidate wins, the Electoral College, Congress or the Supreme Court could decide to install somebody else, is absurd.

What we need is exactly what the Creekside Declaration called for: Transparent, participatory democracy. Anything less is NOT democracy and is unacceptable.

Wouldn't it be fantastic when some ethical and moral hacker gets wind of this, who's fed up with the ways things are, and turns the tables on those in power by tweaking the voting machines to have the best position-fit candidate win.

How many mainstream conservatives have dared to point out what is obvious to anyone having a brain bigger than a chimp's? Who'll arrest the perpetrators in this adminisitration and military complex? Public opinion would at least remove them from office, absent their tampering with electronic voting machines and/or declaring martial law.

More deeply thinking people know that Bush "won" his re-election through electronic voting machines, as there was no way in hell that those INSIDE perpetrators of September 11th would have risked NOT RETAINING CONTROL after such a bold, risk-taking move.

Electronic voting machines invite voter fraud by both Left and Right, we’ve taken the idea “fairness” to a new low in the West, which new low I express by amending an old saying: ‘All is fair in love and war and politics.’

What the computer scientists have missed is this: voting tabulations are altered remotely, using a hidden transceiver within each critically located machine (critical states).

Not only is the fix in, but politicians are no longer accountable to the people - they are accountable to those who control the results of the elections and therefore the labels "Democrat" and "Republican" no longer apply. What we have now is the "Vendor Party"; a 1 party system.

Yup, and part of the the "Vendor Party" platform is to leave impeachment off the table.

After being beaten down for close to a decade now, perhaps there isn't enough political will any more:

The U.S. seems almost paralyzed, mesmerized by Iraq and unable to generate the energy or the will to handle the myriad problems festering at home. The war will eventually cost a staggering $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. When he was asked on “Democracy Now!” about who is profiting from the war, he said the two big gainers were the oil companies and the defense contractors.

(NYTimes, emphasis added). The electronic voting scurge is just one more lash on our backs.

I am concerned that Diebold will be used to give Senator Clinton a 20 pt victory in PA
Will Bradblog be monitoring? Will there be any reliable exit polling? How many of these Cylon machines will be in play during this election?
Thank you
Ryan Donahue
a concerned American voter

I just watched Hacking Democracy and I am sick to my stomach that this could happen in this country. I knew in my heart that Al Gore won that first election and something would surface about what happened in Florida. All those exits polls can't be wrong and never usually are. Now that we know about this, what can be done about it!!??!! How can this injustice go unpunished. The history of this country and world was changed forever. Innocent young men were killed because of this. Isn't that murder!!??!! Is anything being done? IF NOT, WHY NOT??

Will..I saw Hacking Democracy as well and as a computer professional it certainly does make me angry that this process is so easy to corrupt. However, you are wrong when you say that Gore won in 2000. If you research all of the independent recounts, you will see that Bush wins Florida in all but one type of very strict recount. The election laws were clear and only clear punches thru the ballots should have been counted. The Florida Supreme Court overstepped its authority when it started directing how the recounts were to be performed. The fact that 2 counties counted dimpled ballots and 2 did not, violated the equal protection clause in our federal Constitution and the justices said so in a 7-2 decision. Allowing emotions and their "sense of fairness" to sway their decision and not sticking to the strict standard of merely interpreting the law...makes the Florida Supreme Court in this instance, an activist court.